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THE QUESTION BEFORE US. 



BOSTON: 

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 

22, School Stueet. 

1862. 



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iUs.cnarig'e 
Weat. Bea. Hlat. Soc. 



THE QUESTION BEFORE US. 



" Times change, and we change with them." A few 
months ago, the reasonable conservative and the rea- 
sonable liberal agreed that the end, aim, object, and 
purpose of the war now desolating so many homes 
were the maintenance of _ the integrity of the Union. 
To-day, as in past days, this is the sole issue. Rebel- 
lion rose in arms. The pretence of secession drove 
rebels into armed bands, and left them to fight and to 
die, without a shadow of right in the cause for which 
they fought. The perpetuity of the Union is an 
object for which those denying the right of secession 
can and will fight long and well ; but, like the shield 
of old, it has two sides. Its perpetuity by its own 
inherent power is denied by those who look at the 
wrong side. They will not turn the cloth they hold 
in their hands ; nor will they submit to what they feel 
to be the degradation of even a glance at the aspect 
of things at which other men look. Let them turn 
the cloth, look at the other side, and see how falsely 
good things are portrayed by the reverse of a piece of 
tapestry. But tliis we cannot look for. Misconcep- 
tion, misconstruction wilfully assumed, misjudgmeut 



made such by slavery, and an nngronnded belief in 
" chivalry," haA^e torn the affection and sympathy of a 
portion of the nation from the attachment and devo- 
tion to the Union for which their fathers died enno- 
bled. 

The real issue, however, remains the same ; and it 
is, Shall the Union be preserved ? Slavery says, 
"No:" Freedom says, "Yes." The North is not 
waging war against the South. If a man robbed the 
treasury of the United States ; if a man shot an offi- 
cer of justice ; if men collected to commit treason 
with violence, — there would be no doubt that pun- 
ishment should and -svould meet them. Numbers 
do not change the issue. Government is as much 
bound to punish a thousand traitors as a single one. 
Gladly we can look at the course of the Government 
in the fratricidal contest into which we have been 
forced. It has kept, even-handed, the extinction of 
rebellion as its aim. 

When the call was sounded, the men of the Free 
States so responded as to prove their readiness to do 
and die for the Union. No thought of President- 
making, or any other object of ])olitical chicanery, 
checked the ardor of volunteers, who, in fifteen 
minutes, left their homes, — perhaps their wives and 
children, — glad to join the struggle for their coun- 
trv's safety. The events of the spring of 1S61, and 
of May, 1862, prove the full appreciation in the Free 
States of the nature and iiiii)ortance of the questions 
iiiV()lv(Ml. A word from th(^ bnvful authorities, and 
hands ready for blows throniicd to cariv the word 



into effect. Every man knows that the fighting now 
going on is to maintain or to destroy the Union, under 
which so many years of plenty have been vouchsafed 
to us. Every rebel has the means of knowledge, that 
the action of the Government has been solely to sui> 
.press a course of conduct in the Slave States at once 
absurd, treasonable, and suicidal. Floyd and Thom- 
son stand out conspicuously in their treason ; but there 
is a sadly large number of those, Avho, lesser skilled, 
do the lesser wrong. Conventionality can raise but a 
thin veil to hide swindling, piracy, and cruelty. The 
high tone of manners and generous hospitality in 
which we at the North used to have a feeling of 
pride, as the inheritance of our brethren of the 
South, has dwindled into what, excepting to rebel 
ears, is now a by-word, — " chivalry." From the cul- 
tivated, refined, and attractive Pinckneys, Middletons, 
Lees, and others, from the Slave States, the leading 
spirits of the South have degenerated, so as to be 
represented by a renegade Davis, a Jew Benjamin, 
and generals, who, like Pillow, are famous for their 
infamy. Oaths, flags of truce, and the restraints of 
humanity, are disregarded with that short-sightedness 
which ignores results in view of momentary advan- 



tages. 



The attitude and the action of the North arc tlie 
reverse of this. Calmly and judiciously has the Pre- 
sident met all the difliculties which have risen before 
him. Promptly and fully have the people responded 
to every call made upon them. Many were disa])- 
pointed when the recruiting was closed ; and, when 



6 



the second call came, the struggle again was, Who 
should be the first to be ready to start for the Capi- 
tol ^ Impulses and passions have had their part in 
the uprising of the North, as "svell as in the madness 
of the South. But here we stand to-day, arrayed in 
arms, struggling for successes, and impatient at inac- 
tion, both armies anxious for the fray. And why is 
it 1 It is because slavery, in the Heaven-guided march 
of human affairs, found itself forced to act aggressively. 
The horrors which slavery entails, the unfair repre- 
sentation constitutionally secured to it, the taunting 
scorn it has brought upon the nation, and the obvious 
eftbrts by the South to secure its propagation, at last 
awoke the Free States to a sense of what might arise, 
if the hydra-headed monster, caressed by the Slave 
States, could not be kept within the limits prescribed 
by the Constitution. The Free States never forgot 
their allegiance, or their obligations to their sister 
States; but, with "Non-extension" on their banners, 
they went into the bloodless battle of the ballot. But, 
even before that battle, the supporters of slavery, 
foreseeing the result, covertly and treasonably scat- 
tered our navy over the face of the globe ; sent into 
the land of slavery our troops, ammunition, and coin ; 
and then aggressively struck the first blow, avowedly 
for States' rights, but in fact for slavery. Treason 
thus reared its head ; rebellion and resistance dis- 
played themselves; and the Free States found, that 
while they had been acting in good faith, and with 
the expectation that the Slave States would keep 
their allegiance, they were suddenly and utterly, with- 



out preparation, obliged to take up arms to quell an 
armed revolt, — an already organized attempt to break 
up the Union, and from some of its shreds to form a 
separate nation. Maine and Ohio were not invited 
to join in this confederation : they were not Slave 
States. The perpetuity and the extension of slavery 
were the bonds which were to bind together the new 
nation. Secession, in its present use, is an empty 
word. It has no legal sense, and was adopted by 
the slaveholders as a convenient word to mislead the 
North and foreign nations as to their true designs 
and aims. The quick sequence of events has torn 
aside this flimsy veil, and left its mere rags to show 
that it ever existed. Already armed, and on a van- 
tage-ground gained by treason, the rebels dared to 
attack the nation. Hundreds of thousands sprang 
to its rescue; and the history of the world cannot 
show so pregnant a fact as the assembling of some 
seventy thousand armed volunteers from the North in 
Washington in about seventy days from the date of 
the first call for troops. 

The North had not attacked slavery : it had simply 
insisted on its non-extension ; and this object it sought 
only by the ballot-box. But when rebellion broke 
out in arms, and the National Government called for 
soldiers to maintain its existence, then the North 
rose in its strength. Male and female, young and 
old, took their shares of the burden, and have car- 
ried them bravely. Hospital supplies have flowed 
from the Old Bay State as freely for the sick and 
wounded of the West as for those of her own regi- 



8 



mcnts. The interest is in the cause, and not in 
individuals ; and it is intense. Call after call of the 
Government for volunteers would be responded to as 
they have been, in utter disregard of all party lines 
and all conditions suggested by partisans. The safety 
of the nation, the crushing of rebellion, and the cer- 
tainty that the power of the Government shall be 
sufficient to protect the Government itself and to 
enforce the laws, are the motives which stir the blood 
of the North, and send men direct from the plough to 
the battle-field. These are the simple facts. The 
South is straining every nerve in a contest which it 
believes to affect its peculiar institution. The North* 
is sending forth such men and material as shall be 
necessary to sustain the Government, and to strengthen 
its hands in the most direct and practical way. And 
this work is being well done. A rope, a ring of fire, 
a " moving wood," are being drawn around the rebel- 
lious States. From the Chesapeake, by Port Koyal, 
Pensacola, and New Orleans, the rope stretches up 
the Mississippi, and by the Ohio, in a circle, round to 
Washington. 

This space contains the rebels ; and the imaginary 
rope around it is drawn tighter and tighter day by 
day. No rope runs quite clear from kinks ; and we 
have suffered losses of officers and men, and have met 
"repulses," and gone through "panics;" but our 
reverses have taught us the value of steady, patient 



• The words " North " and " South " have been used as conveniently descrip- 
tive, and as ahnost true in fact. But the North is not at war with the Soutli. It is 
more like a parent correcting a rebellious child, thau like a nation waging war. 



perseverance. High before us, high enough to be 
seen by all, shines the beacon-light which guides the 
North, enshrined in smoke, glimmering by day and 
nisht in the lurid liorht of battles ; and that beacon- 
light is our flag, the stars and stripes, which are the 
emblem of our Union, one and indivisible, now and 
for ever. That is the light which nerves the arm of 
the North. Our battle-cry is, " The Union ! " and so 
it should and must be. Hatred of si'- ery, soreness 
from the taunts which that curse ^ gs upon the 
nation, ay, the very hope to see fl -om stretch all 
over our fair land, must not mislea\ us. The exist- 
ence and integrity of the nation are what we are 
fighting for. 

No one at the North doubts that the backbone of 
slavery is breaking, or that any other than an armed 
peace can be had, until some relief, present or future, 
from this curse, shall have been secured ; but the 
question presses grievously upon us of the Nortli, 
how this relief is to be obtained. The startling pro- 
gress of events has so occupied the thinking minds 
among us, that this matter has not yet had the grave 
consideration which its importance demands ; but the 
time for it is close at hand. No question at issue, in 
words or in arms, on the face of the globe, to-day, is 
so momentous as this ; and yet it has not been grap- 
pled with and disposed of by competent minds. Their 
love for their country is absorbed in watching the fate 
of our armies, instead of foreseeing and providing for 
the result of tlieir success. Let tlic intellectual en- 
ergy of the North display itself in thougbt as vigor- 



10 



ously as its i)liysical force has displayed itself in 
readiness to fight. Let those who can and who 
onght, — give their best efforts to devising the answer 
to the question, " What is then to be done 1 " It is 
already before ns, and it must be answered. I'hc 
course of events, under an all-wise Providence, has 
thrown upon our willing hands the care of a few 
thousand " contrabands : " but, when the number is 
in millions instead of thousands, private benevolence 
is inadequate ; and the Government has taken no ac- 
tion to meet the case, further than to provide for the 
payment of the thousands of negroes it can use as 
laborers. Some plan must be adopted, and, by the 
signs of the times, it must be speedily, by which an 
immense number of freed slaves shall be protected, 
and provided for. 

Mr. Blair gave expression, a short time since, to 
an idea which contains the pith of the matter, lie 
said, " The Southern difficulty is not with the slaves, 
but with the negroes." The law protects and pro- 
vides for the slaves. Their position is definite, and 
Avell understood ; and their future safety, as slaves, is 
well assured. But when these very individuals now 
slaves, or a i)ortion of them, shall, by one cause or 
another, become free negroes, their position will be 
indefinite and difficult. 

Freedom may come to the slaves by the flight of 
their masters, by force of a " military necessity," or by 
the action of the Government; but all signs will fail, 
if, when the rebellion shall have been suppressed by 
force, milhous of negroes shall not stand looking to 



11 

the North as their hope and stay. What is the North 
to do ] This question, so clearly and so quickly aris- 
ing-, must not be left to a hasty answer. Those who 
can foresee its coming must prepare to meet it. Those 
who are sincere wishers for the welfare of the slave 
must now ponder over, grapple with, and master it. 
They must not await its coming. It is definite enough 
now in all its elements for consideration ; and the 
North will not be true to itself, unless it soon pro- 
poses an answer to a question, which is the most 
important and the most difiicult which has ever ari- 
sen since political economy became a science. 

It is certainly unnecessary, at this day, to attempt 
to excite farther the desire of the Free States to se- 
cure the freedom of the slaves. Money and men 
have been freely expended in the indirect issue, which 
this " war," so called, has raised as to slavery ; but it 
is well not to lose sight of actual facts. In the States 
which are now in rebcUion against the Government, 
there is a population, black and white, of about 
twelve millions ; of whom, in round numbers, four 
millions are slaves. Among the remaining eight mil- 
lions, there are about three hundred and sixty thou- 
sand slaveholders, among whom many are women 
and minors. The remainder of the eight millions 
are the so-called "poor white trash." It is such 
u simple statement as this which has the greatest 
efi'ect in a crisis like the present. Can the world be- 
lieve that a mere handful of slaveholders — less than 
a handful, compared with our whole population — has 
been so long able to control the politics of the na- 



12 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

mill mil Hill iiiii mil mil mil mil mil Mill mil nil III 



011 899 206 4 



tion^ And yet how much more difficult it is to 
beheve, that not over four hundred thousand men . 
have been able to plunge this country into what, per- 
haps, the law of nations would style a civil war! 
Thirty millions of men embroiled by about four hun- 
dred thousand ! The resources of the nation have 
been, and must continue to be, expended, without 
stint or delay, to contravene the machinations of a 
])ortion of the nation numerically insignificant. 

The whole weight and bearing of this cloud over 
our future has never been calculated. We are too 
apt to rely on the workings of an all-wise Providence ; 
but our shoulders are wanted at the wheel. Let us 
prepare for the impending difficulty as we have pre- 
pared for the horrors of the battle-field. 

Some consideration may be given hereafter to the 
various plans and suggestions as to what can be done 
for the negroes, which, so far as they are as yet before 
the public, are too chaotic to be more than indicative 
of hopes and fears. These pages are intended solely 
to call the attention of the thinking men of the North 
to the importance of a question which begins to urge 
for an answer, and which is graver than has ever of- 
fered itself to the decision of statesmen and phibni- 
tliropists. 

JrxE ir,, 1S(,2. 



